" Penalty for omission to perform this simple task was
definite; whosoever brought no letter would inevitably be "kept
in" after school, that afternoon, until the letter was written,
and it was precisely a premonition of this misfortune that had
prompted Penrod to attempt his experimental moaning upon his
father, for, alas! he had equipped himself with no model letter,
nor any letter whatever.
In stress of this kind, a boy's creed is that anything is worth a
try; but his eye for details is poor. He sees the future too
sweepingly and too much as he would have it seldom providing
against inconsistencies of evidence that may damage him. For
instance, there is a well-known case of two brothers who
exhibited to their parents, with pathetic confidence, several
imported dried herring on a string, as a proof that the afternoon
had been spent, not at a forbidden circus, but with hook and line
upon the banks of a neighbouring brook.
So with Penrod. He had vital need of a letter, and there before
his eyes, upon Margaret's desk, was apparently the precise thing
he needed!
From below rose the voice of his mother urging him to the
breakfast-table, warning him that he stood in danger of tardiness
at school; he was pressed for time, and acted upon an inspiration
that failed to prompt him even to read the letter.
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